The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects

Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli is releasing a new book on The Art of Clean Up, where he takes everyday scenes of disorder and rearranges them into neat rows, sorted by different attributes such as color, size, shape, and type, etc. Some of the preview images from the book seem borderline OCD, such as the pine branch that has been ordered by the needle size– others are on such a huge scale that it almost seems laughable, as if a giant had come along and re-organized a lawn full of towels and people.

The book is a follow-up to his previous Tidying Up Art books, where Wehrli used to “tidy up” famous artworks, such as Van Gogh’s room or Botticelli’s beach.

The alphabet soup is one of my favorites, as is the fruit salad– maybe its the concept of rearranging food that appeals to me (throwback to the IKEA cookbook!) but in my defense, they both look delicious. Also, when I was learning Chinese as a kid, I used to imagine that the different pen strokes in each word could be rearranged too, just like that last photo with the Japanese kanji! Too funny. [Via The Inspiration.]

83 comments

I loved it all, but found myself further rearranging things in my mind’s eye, like the evergreen needles into their different shades of green. Guess I’m a natural! Thought, though, about the examination of a daisy in which it ends up being just parts, and not the beautiful whole. A fun way to look at things here, anyway, and right up my alley. My thanks to the friend who shared the site.

Really like the idea, very beautiful work.
Only one additional comment: the last picture with the text “请勿乱扔杂物” uses Chinese characters, HanZi (汉字), not japanese Kanji. It means “Please do not litter”. However, since the Japanese adopted the logographic Chinese characters (HanZi) is possible that this specific sentence can be used and found also in Japan.

Art IS messy, no? (every artist I know is a mess!) This type of art is very mathematical and calculated. Although, it is pretty cool and new…
I still believe twisty turny disorder is more interesting to look at.
This is too neat for me. Makes me want to scatter everything up.